Executive Board tables motion
requiring statement on inerrancy
___By Mark Wingfield
___Managing Editor
___DALLAS--An Arlington pastor's attempt to put the Baptist General Convention of Texas on record with a more specific statement on biblical authority than even the Southern Baptist Convention has adopted turned the closing moments of the BGCT Executive Board's fall meeting into a tense confrontation.
___Dwight McKissic, pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church in Arlington, introduced the motion near the end of the meeting. His motion would have added one sentence to the 1963 Baptist Faith & Message.
___The BGCT has affirmed the 1963 version of the faith statement written for the Southern Baptist Convention while registering protest with SBC revisions in 1998 and 2000.
___McKissic's motion would have added: "We believe in the divine inspiration of the whole Bible and the inerrancy of the original manuscripts."
___He wanted his addition to be affirmed by the Executive Board at its Sept. 25 meeting and then by messengers to the BGCT annual session Oct. 29-30.
___Making such a statement would help stem the tide of churches leaving the BGCT or becoming dually aligned with the alternative Southern Baptists of Texas Convention, he insisted. The reason some churches are moving to SBTC is its clearer statement on biblical inerrancy, he said.
___McKissic's own church became dually aligned with the SBTC one month ago, although he did not mention that during the Executive Board meeting. He later confirmed the SBTC's use of "inerrancy" in its doctrinal statement was a prime reason for the church's decision.
___"If adopted, (this statement) could unify Texas Baptists and reconcile us with the SBC," McKissic told the Executive Board. Further, it would "lay to rest once and for all any lack of clarity or confusion about what we believe."
___McKissic's motion came nearly four hours into a meeting that already was running overtime and extended beyond the scheduled lunch hour.
___He had spoken several times during the meeting to other issues, mainly seeking greater representation of African-Americans on BGCT boards and committees immediately. He also had nominated a candidate for chairman of the Executive Board.
___This was McKissic's third meeting to attend as an Executive Board member. He was elected to the board last November.
___McKissic read a one-page letter in making his motion and then was allowed to speak to the motion after it was seconded by Jim Ginnings of Wichita Falls.
___"Churches are telling me that if the BGCT would adopt this, they wouldn't leave," McKissic said. He expressed doubts about other Baptists' belief in the Bible if they will not use "inerrant" to describe it.
___Wesley Shotwell, pastor of Ash Creek Baptist Church in Azle, offered a substitute motion that would have reaffirmed the BGCT's "historic belief in the absolute and complete trustworthiness of the Bible" and the BGCT's 1999 affirmation of the 1963 Baptist Faith & Message.
___Shotwell said he had "grave doubts" that McKissic's motion would bring about the unification McKissic suggested. "Our leaders have said over and over again their belief in the trustworthiness of the Bible."
___Yet critics of the BGCT have continued to say BGCT leaders don't believe the Bible, he added.
___Further, McKissic's motion would create more problems than it solved because the word "inerrancy" is fraught with multiple theological meanings and heavy political overtones, Shotwell argued.
___Theologically, the word can have six or seven meanings, he said. "Some of those are too liberal for me. ... It is a very slippery term theologically."
___And in the context of Baptist life, the word has become politically divisive, Shotwell added, alluding to the 20-year battle for control of the SBC that was built around biblical inerrancy as a rallying cry.
___Ironically, even SBC leaders have avoided the word "inerrancy" in their recent reformulations of the Baptist Faith & Message, he said. "The SBC, when they had a perfect opportunity to insert this word, did not do so."
___Tommy Hood, pastor of Lakeshore Drive Baptist Church
__in Weatherford, also argued that adopting McKissic's motion would create "further division" because the BGCT would have adopted a faith statement never adopted by the SBC.
___He supported Shotwell's notion that critics of the BGCT haven't been silenced by the truth in the past, recalling the Executive Board's own action to break ties with an Austin church that affirmed homosexuality. "Has that stopped the accusations about the BGCT and homosexuality?" he asked.
___McKissic has placed the BGCT and the Executive Board in a lose-lose situation, Hood argued, by making a motion that cannot be affirmed but that will make the BGCT appear to have voted against biblical authority.
___In light of this no-win situation, Don Wilkey, pastor of First Baptist Church of Onalaska, asked if both McKissic and Shotwell might be willing to drop their motions. Shotwell said he would withdraw his substitute motion if McKissic would withdraw the original motion.
___McKissic, however, refused. "My conscience will not allow me to drop mine," he said.
___That prompted Ed Seay, pastor of First Baptist Church in Magnolia, to attempt to table both motions. After a period of parliamentary confusion, Chairman Rudy Sanchez ruled that a motion to table could only apply to the motion at hand, which was Shotwell's substitute motion.
___Eventually, board members voted by voice on Seay's motion to table Shotwell's substitute motion. The chairman declared the vote to have carried.
___Then Seay immediately made a motion to table McKissic's original motion, requesting BGCT Executive Director Charles Wade and McKissic discuss the issue. That motion passed by a show of hands.
___McKissic asked to speak to the body yet again, eliciting shouts of "No!" from numerous board members. As Chairman Sanchez stood pondering the impasse, Wade came to the microphone.
___Fighting back tears, Wade spoke directly to McKissic, whom he has known for a number of years. "Dwight, you are a good friend. You have spoken several times. ... We will work together on this," he said.
___Wade told McKissic that anything else he said in that meeting likely would do more harm than good.
___As Sanchez took back the microphone to introduce the next item on the agenda, McKissic got up and started walking out of the large auditorium from his second-row seat.
___Sanchez called him down by name, telling him he ought to stay until the meeting was concluded and participate with the group at the planned luncheon afterward. Upon Sanchez's instruction, McKissic turned around and walked back to his seat. He also attended the luncheon.
___In the closing moments of the board meeting, BGCT President Clyde Glazener insisted, "We do believe the Bible" and, "The BGCT is made up of people who believe the Bible."
___Some Executive Board members wondered aloud after the meeting whether McKissic's controversial motion had been originated by BGCT critics, namely leaders of the competing Southern Baptists of Texas Convention. Putting the Executive Board in a lose-lose situation with a motion on biblical authority would be an effective tool for swaying more churches to leave the BGCT, they reasoned.
___Asked later whether SBTC leaders had prompted his motion, McKissic declined to identify individuals with whom he had discussed his proposal.
___"I've discussed this with people on all sides of Texas life," he said. "I'm not going to discuss personal conversations I've had. ... I resent the insinuation that anyone would think I was put up for this. These are my beliefs, period."
___McKissic agreed nobody alive has ever seen the "original manuscripts" of Scripture. Asked to describe his beliefs about current translations of the Bible, he used words and phrases often sounded by BGCT leaders.
___"They are authoritative and are truth without any mixture of error," he said. "I don't claim any translation process the Bible doesn't claim. I believe it is without error.
___"It's like a ruler you buy at Wal-Mart, (which) might be slightly different from official standards of measurement in Washington, D.C., but a ruler we might purchase from Wal-Mart is efficient and sufficient."
___The difference, he said, is whether individuals and groups will claim the "original manuscripts" are inerrant.
___Since the Executive Board will not meet again until February and cannot deal with the issue prior to the BGCT annual session next month, McKissic held out the possibility he might bring his proposal to the convention floor.
___"I would want to get a commitment up front on the date and time they would let the people vote" on his statement, he said. "I don't want to throw it under the table like they did the other day."
___With additional reporting by Editor Marv Knox
The Baptist Standard
News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist churches, in the BGCT, the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.
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